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The West Comes East in 'Knowing the West' Exhibition

By Chadd Scott on

The Pomo feathered bowl circa 1877 composed of willow, bulrush, fern, woodpecker and quail feathers, shell, and glass beads. Short, tufty feathers. Feathers like branched fish gills. This bowl, too, looks like it could breathe. It looks like something out of the “Star Wars” production closet designed to imagine what bowls on alien planets not bound by the realities of Earth look like.

I’ve never seen anything like it.

To quote the great Western movie “Tombstone:” “I’ve never even heard of anything like it.”

I have heard about the tiny Pima baskets, complete with removable lids, less than an inch tall, but never seen one before.

I don’t ever remember seeing a pale white Pueblo pot like the Maria Katitse or Saivutesta (Zuni Pueblo, 1871–1957), Drum Jar (Débe hanne), circa 1928, either. Not one this large – 22-inches across at its widest. Big, “heartline” deer painted around it.

Maria Katitse or Saivutesta, Zuni Pueblo, c. 1871–1957, ‘Drum Jar (Débe hanne), c. 1928, clay and paint,17 in. x 22in. Courtesy of the School for Advanced Research.

Maria Katitse or Saivutesta, Zuni Pueblo, c. 1871–1957, ‘Drum Jar (Débe hanne), c. 1928, clay and paint,17 in. x 22in. Courtesy of the School for Advanced Research.

I look at Western and Native American art for a living. I have since 2018. I write about it, I read about it, I study it, I’ve been to most of the top museums and galleries, and this is as memorable a pot as I’ve ever seen.

Charlie Russell’s (1864 – 1926) 1919’s The Buffalo Hunt (No. 39) might be the finest Russell painting ever displayed in Florida. I’d be surprised if it’s not.

Same goes for the large Maria Martinez and Julian Martinez pot. Iconic black-on-black. An A+, textbook, Maria Martinez pot, perfectly symmetrical, with a super-precise Avanyu depiction wrapping around the top.

And the large Nampeyo pot.

I’ll go a step further with the circa 1900 Osage wedding outfit and say it’s the finest example of its kind ever on public view in the Deep South. It must be. And the 1890 Apsáalooke lance case. And the Nellie Two Bear Gates (Iháƞktȟuƞwaƞna Dakhóta, Standing Rock Reservation, 18541935) beaded suitcases. And the assemblage of cradles and cradleboards. And the Indigenous and Mexican saddles.

The bananas John Young Bear (Meskwaki, Sac and Fox, Tama, Iowa, 1883–1960) grizzly bear claw necklace and trailer of beaver or otter pelt would stand out in any presentation of American or Native American artwork anywhere in the country. As far as grizzly bear necklaces go, I’ve only seen one better, and that one is among the three or four finest art objects I’ve ever seen.

All these items share space at a most unlikely place: the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens in Jacksonville, FL. They are here as part of “Knowing the West,” an exhibition on view through August 31, 2025. The presentation seeks to question our understanding of the West, our definitions of the West, our knowledge of the West. Not in a condescending or accusatory way, rather out of genuine curiosity. Are perceptions of the West based on movies and popular culture? Time spent there? Art?

This knowledge, of course, is shaped differently “back East,” in a place like Jacksonville. That’s intentional. The exhibition originated at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR. It wraps up at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh in 2026. The show is designed as a look at the West from the outside.

Olive Rush, American, 1873–1966,’Maria and Julian,’ 1914, oil on academy board,12.25 in. x 18.5 in. Tia Collection, Santa Fe, NM. James Hart Photography.

Olive Rush, American, 1873–1966,’Maria and Julian,’ 1914, oil on academy board,12.25 in. x 18.5 in. Tia Collection, Santa Fe, NM. James Hart Photography.

Women of Western Art

This particular look at the West, rightly, centers Indigenous people. More than half of the objects on view are of Indigenous origin. “Knowing the West” is short on cattle drives and gunfights, and long on baskets, beads, and pottery.

It also centers women. More than half of the objects on view were created by women. The pots and beadwork you’d expect; the paintings are a revelation.

Barbara Latham’s (1869-1989) fantastic northern New Mexico farm/landscape scene Corrals (1935) is a sight for sore eyes.

I live in northeast Florida with all of its ocean blues and oak tree greens. The Cummer is my “local” museum. While I live here, “home” for me is now northern New Mexico. That’s where I feel most comfortable. That’s where I belong. Among the mountains and rabbitbrush. Corrals has all the vibes and dusty color palate. For a moment, I’m back home.

Joining Latham are paintings by Catherine Carter Critcher (1868– 1964) – the only female member of the Taos Society of Artists – and Helen Blumenshein (1909–1989), daughter of E.L. Blumenshein, speaking of the Taos Founders. Critcher and Blumenshein aside, Latham and Louise Crow (1891–1968) and Eda Sterchi (1885–1969) and Dorothy Brett (1883–1977) are not likely to be names familiar to even ardent Western art devotes. They were not to me, and in addition to Western art, I have a particular interest in female American painters.

Exhibition organizers were intentional with this as well, seeking to draw out lesser-known – completely unknown, for the most part – female Western artists. Georgia O’Keeffe was purposefully excluded. As exhibition co-curator Mindy Besaw explained during a talk at the Cummer on April 22, any exhibition with a single O’Keeffe painting becomes an O’Keeffe exhibition. She didn’t want that.

O’Keeffe’s peak New Mexico paintings also reside outside the exhibition’s informal timeframe: 1785 to 1922. That is the era covered in Joseph No Two Horns or He Nupa Wanica’s (Hunkpapa Lakota, Teton Sioux, 1852–1942), Winter Count, from 1922. This object, the first to greet exhibition visitors at the Cummer, similar to so many others on display, must be the finest of its kind ever on view within 300 miles of here. Maybe 500.

Chiura Obata, 'Sequoias,' 1931. Ink on Paper. Estate of Chiura Obata.

Chiura Obata, 'Sequoias,' 1931. Ink on Paper. Estate of Chiura Obata.

The Best Of The Best

Female painters and feather bowls aren’t the only artistic revelations in “Knowing the West.” Chiura Obata’s (1885–1975) landscapes stand out. The Japanese-born painter immigrated to the U.S. along with his parents in 1903. He would subsequently be interned in a concentration camp along with more than 100,000 other legal U.S. citizens and residents of Japanese heritage during World War II.

Obata first visited Yosemite in 1927, spending six weeks there. Even though his artistic training and career were shaped in California, his watercolors, woodblock prints, and ink on paper Yosemite-inspired pictures have a distinct Japanese feel, connecting to centuries old artistic practices there.

The artworks are loaned directly from his estate. Much of the rest comes by way of the premiere Western art museums in the country. That’s why this stuff is so good. Exhibition curators went to the best museums and best collections in the country and asked for the best stuff. They got it.

“Knowing the West” artwork loans come from the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, WY, the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, the stupendous School For Advanced Research pottery collection – the best in the world – in Santa Fe, the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, the private Tia Collection in Santa Fe, the Philbrook Museum in Tulsa, and the Denver Art Museum. Curators also went outside Western art museums to cherry pick prime pieces from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College, the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston – the best museums in America.

The stroke – and finances – of the organizing institution, Crystal Bridges, founded by Walmart heiress Alice Walton, is evident in the caliber and number of artworks on view: 120. It’s a big show! Not as big as the West, but a survey worthy of its grandiose sub

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